


Valentine's Day Plans

by ifreet



Category: The Mentalist
Genre: Comment Fic, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-21
Updated: 2011-02-21
Packaged: 2017-10-15 20:33:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/164696
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifreet/pseuds/ifreet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Patrick Jane was certain that Kimball Cho would not call himself a romantic. He'd probably say he was a pragmatist, as though the two were mutually exclusive.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Valentine's Day Plans

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lamentables](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lamentables/gifts).



Patrick Jane was certain that Kimball Cho would not call himself a romantic. He'd probably say he was a pragmatist, as though the two were mutually exclusive. As much as Patrick enjoyed upsetting apple carts -- where "apple carts" meant "other peoples' misconceptions of themselves" -- well, it hardly seemed appropriate to the holiday, and he didn't want to spend the evening subject to Kimball's silent yet bristly irritation.

Instead, Patrick quietly made his own plans. A nice resort. Dinner on the terrace. A room with an excellent view which they would ignore utterly in favor of a large bed covered in soft sheets and an excessive number of pillows. He briefly considered the Calistoga Canyon Resort but reminded himself that tweaking Kimball was not the point.

Patrick strolled into the station brimming with good cheer and bearing flowers -- ostensibly for Teresa and Grace, but one landed on Wayne's desk and one on his actual target's. Kimball glanced up and allowed his amusement to show briefly, which he knew was a gift in its own right. Kimball could keep his expressions under wraps better than nearly anyone Patrick had met since... well, in a long time. He smiled, confident it would be a good day.

Until that ass Watson got himself killed, and all Patrick's planning went out the window.

***

Jane dropped his jacket over the room's single chair and laid down on the bed, scratchy comforter laid over bleach-scented, rough sheets. He tossed and caught, tossed and caught the keyring that would draw out the killer, then tucked both hands behind his head. The water stain on the ceiling was shaped like a cloud, meaning like nothing in particular. Jane's money -- if Lisbon let him bet on the cases themselves, which she wouldn't -- would be on the business partner who was clearly obsessed with the wife. Love and money headed the list of popular motives. Though if the motive was 'love,' a murderer had to be inconsiderate and short-sighted to commit it on the fourteenth and forever link the day to violence in the mind of the object of one's presumed affections.

The door rattled, the card reader beeped, and Cho let himself in. Jane was too annoyed at the universe to be even slightly curious how he'd gotten a key card. Charmed the night clerk, probably, that's how Jane would have done it. Or -- no. This was Cho. He must have been deeply serious at the clerk and allowed him or her to infer all sorts of terrible consequence if a second key were not procured.

"Hey," Cho said, sitting by Jane's hip on the ridiculously narrow bed. "Still in a sulk?"

"I don't sulk."

"Right," Cho said. Jane shot him a look, because the mild tone was one of contradiction, not agreement, regardless of the actual word. His expression, though, was fond and maybe a little amused, and Patrick exhaled and relaxed his shoulders, let his elbows drift lower toward the bed.

"Children sulk. I'm not a child."

"Debatable," Kimball replied. Patrick raised his eyebrow and opened his mouth, debating how best to phrase a smart remark about Kimball's apparent deviance in that case, but Kimball, always ready to seize an opening, swooped down to kiss him. Man of action. Patrick smiled into the kiss and kept his hands where they were. After all, Kimball was already doing exactly what Patrick wanted, and expending less effort for better results was the point of being smarter than everyone else.

Kimball pulled back, studied him for a moment. "You'd made plans. What were they?"

Patrick shrugged against the mattress. "Nothing much. Dinner, a hotel." That garnered an exaggerated glance around. Patrick pulled a face and clarified, "A nice dinner for two at a restaurant that didn't fairly scream 'family dining, ask about our kids menu' and a hotel room without Rigsby on the one side and Lisbon and Van Pelt on the other."

Kimball shrugged. "So we'll have to be quiet. You like a challenge."

"Unromantic," he accused. "Anti-romantic."

"Practical," he replied and bent to press their lips together again.


End file.
